FCC promises $954 million to restore Puerto Rico's hurricane-damaged communications networks
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai toured Puerto Rico this week and promised $954 million to restore communications networks knocked out by Hurricane Maria.
At the same time, the National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved (NHIT Collaborative) co-hosted the “Leveraging Health IT to Address Health Disparities: A Leadership Conference”, which brought together national leaders who discussed how to leverage the federal Lifeline program, which the FCC administers, as part of a disaster preparedness-and-response network.
An estimated 550,000 Puerto Ricans participate in the Lifeline program, which was designed to ensure that low-income households in the United States are able to partake of telecommunications advances and all of the benefits that they bring, including the ability to find and keep jobs, maintain good health, contact emergency services when needed, and preserve strong family and community ties. The FCC has recently proposed several changes to the programs that have drawn concern from a diverse group of commenters.
Luis Belen, CEO, National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved, said: “In many ways, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are a microcosm both of why Lifeline is so urgently needed and how it can work to make life better for its target audience. It is vital that the over 550,000 Puerto Rico participants in the Lifeline program, who consists of our most vulnerable, continue to have access to it.”
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$750 million is intended for Puerto Rico while $204 million is intended for the U.S. Virgin Islands.